Prior art methods exist for controlled printing of signatures or related symbols, such that the image of the signature is not revealed except by printing or display of the signature at an appropriate printing or other final destination device. Existing methods use a signature font, characters from which are embedded by a special application, which are printed to devices using operating system specific drivers. These methods are cumbersome and inflexible in a network printing environment. Needed are more flexible and efficient improved methods for controlled printing of signatures and related predetermined graphic symbols in a distributed computing environment.